fEATurEd THis monTH rir, richmond international raceway 2011 ...

RIR, Richmond International Raceway 2011By Rick EbingerPhotos by Jim Condon, pages 11 & 12Results on page 15With rain in the forecast, we were worried. We have racedfor the last six years, since we purchased the box for theautocross equipment and have never had to put away wet. Thisevent had drizzle during set up on Friday, cloudy and overcast allday Saturday, and rain about 30 miles west of Richmond when wefinished packing up. Dodged a bullet, and for the 46 racers whocame out, they had one really wild day.Trying to change things and raising the challenge levels, we wereable to have a 10 gate staggered slalom, a Chicago box in themiddle of turn 1 that was diagonal to the track, off camber, andclimbing the 14 degree banked turn, a straightaway betweenturns 2 and 3 good for 100 MPH, and a quick flowing course. Wewere happy how it turned out, and I was able to run almost allof it in third; it raised the level needed to go fast on this course.Thank you Mark with Euroclassics and Jack of G-Force Karts forsponsoring this great event and bringing it back from its two-yearhiatus.With 46 racers we had a full day ahead of us, even though westarted at 9:30 AM. The practice track in the infield stayed busythroughout the day, and we had some new cars and fast driversjoin us for the day. The top car of the day was a Lotus Stalker thatcould not have weighed 1,100 pounds, had Hoosiers, and a driverwho knew how to drive. We had well-driven Corvettes and a Viper,and Jonathan Newhall figured out how to make his Jaguar gofast instead of round and round like he has been known to do inStaunton. Jeffrey Elmore had a great day in a very well preparedBoxster that has a great sound to it. He will be one to watch thisyear, as I expect he will be battling for the top spot all this summer.We had a Lemons 944 that was fun to watch, but it couldn’t havebeen but so much fun to drive with the cracked windshield andwagging tail of the car. Erik and Jack both said they had fun drivingit, but I reserve my opinion on that thing. We also had many niceCaymans in the group, and they performed very well. Great cars.We even had a 2007 Mercedes E63 that ran very well on thebanked turns and especially down the straightaway. Everyoneran well, and as usual, we had some spins and thrills. We had theGTO punt the timing gear at the finish line, but luckily, once thebattery holders were straightened, it worked the rest of the day.We did have one other hiccup: the timing gear went nuts at 1 PM.Apparently there was another car group outside the stadium thatwas using the same brand of timing gear as we were, and since therange on the wireless is about 2 miles, we could not figure out whywe had starts and stops that we had never seen before. We madeit work with a wired system, and then back to the wireless systemonce the other group turned off their wireless system. Thanks toJohn Kessler and his wonderful daughter who ran a stopwatchfor us while we changed things around to get the timer working.Great job you two. Paul Sponseller is slipping up the pack, finishingahead of 17 others. Great job Paul and good improvement on notan easy track!Thanks to the helpers and all those who help put this great eventtogether. Thank you to Mark, Jack, and Alex for the support andvision to pull this off. If we do it again, and you like cars and goingfast, don’t let this great event escape you. You won’t be sorry. Staytuned for the next event coming soon.My First Weekend at the TrackMy first weekend at the trackwas an event I will neverforget. When my dad first cameto me asking if I wanted to goto VIR with him for a few days Ididn’t know what to think. So I said“sure”, thinking that he wasn’t reallyserious - but it turns out he wasdeadly serious as he had alreadyplanned out where we would stay,all the logistics about getting there,and making sure he didn’t have towork that weekend.Kyle OttawayWhen we first arrived in Danville, we pulled into the hotelparking lot thinking that there were going to be Porscheseverywhere getting ready for the next day. But there werenone. I started to think “I wonder how many people are goingbe here. I really hope it’s not just us and five other people.”When we came back from dinner, to my relief there were morePorsches, two of which were ones that I have never really seenoutside of a magazine or the dealer. A 2011 997 GT3RS and atrack ready 993 4S were parked right next to each other, andI was no longer worried about us being the only ones there.They did make our stock 1997 Boxster look pretty wimpythough...The next morning we got up at 6:00am promptly to be at thetrack by 7:30am for the opening talk and to be “teched” andsigned in. After we were all settled, I got to take some timeto go look around the paddock at the other cars that werethere. While walking around aimlessly, I saw some of the mostimpressive cars that I have ever seen, such as several 997GT2s, a Ferrari f430 Scuderia, and endless other breathtakingPorsches. It was amazing being able to watch the gray GT2 onthe track because even on the slightest of straights he wouldget the signal to pass from the driver ahead. Because it was ourfirst time participating in a track event, we had to sit through aclass for fifty minutes twice a day. I thought they were goingto review the things that you cannot do while on the track, butin reality each class was different and very interesting. On thefirst day we learned how to properly approach a corner andpass through it at the highest speed with maximum grip. Welearned everything from track etiquette and when to pass tothe amount of Gs achieved while cornering.The highlight of the trip for me was being able to ride withmy dad during the charity laps to see and experience thetrack for myself. Although they were low speed laps, I got thefeeling of what it is like to be on a closed course. Even thoughI cannot participate in an event like that one for another twoyears, I cannot wait until I can. First I need to work on gettinga driver’s license.9